Dunwoody and Brookhaven parents were encouraged – for the most part – with the direction of DeKalb school redistricting after Interim DeKalb School Superintendent Ramona Tyson made her recommendation.
Tyson pushed a modified “decentralized” option that would keep high-achiever magnet programs where they are now.
That recommendation also created smaller shifts in elementary school attendance in Brookhaven and Dunwoody than the alternative “centralized” proposal.
Sheila Lantier, who has two children attending Ashford Park Elementary School, said that no news is good news for the Brookhaven area.
“I was just thrilled that with the way it stands we will not be impacted,” Lantier said.
For Brookhaven, the district’s centralized proposal would have created larger shifts in elementary school zones.
Under the centralized plan, Kittredge, which operates only as a magnet, would become a neighborhood elementary school, drawing students from the Brookhaven area.
Dianna Williams, with the PTA at Ashford Park Elementary, said that the magnets are important at the middle and high school levels as well.
Chamblee Middle and High schools, which Brookhaven students attend, both have magnet programs that educate gifted students and attract quality educators.
“District students who do not test as gifted, but are high achievers or need extra challenges to stay engaged absolutely benefit from the magnet programs,” said Williams, via e-mail.
Dunwoody Elementary School students would be more heavily impacted by the proposal.
Dunwoody Elementary School would become a kindergarten through fifth grade school and would draw more than 900 students in a large attendance zone that now send students to Vanderlyn, Austin and Chesnut elementary schools.
Yuang Lou, who has a child at Vanderlyn Elementary School, has a home in an area that would switch from Vanderlyn to Dunwoody. He would like for things to remain as they are.
“If we have the choice, we would like to stay in Vanderlyn,” he said.